Happy New Year!
Certainly no one was staying up to midnight to ring in the new school year, but there’s a shared sensibility with the January holiday and the September start date. There’s a feeling a new possibilities and the opportunity for making new resolutions. The sensation is not limited to students, but is a feeling that spreads throughout the community as the roads become a little more congested and a back-to-business attitude filters through the community.
As of press time, no one had been suspended, no one had missed an assignment, no had sat out an afternoon in detention. The slate was clean and summer weather still beat down warming classrooms and reminding teachers and students alike of pleasures left behind. Summer still has a couple of official weeks left, but for most people it’s over. The end of summer has come and offers as solace the potential for new resolutions to do better, work harder, play harder, eat healthier and remember that learning is a life long process.
School itself is often not dreaded by students themselves who catch up with friends, join clubs, play sports and dive back into a social world of peers. The subject of homework though often is contentious, and many of today’s students would be surprised to learn that in their grandparents day homework was somewhat frowned upon–by educators. Many people felt that homework was overly burdensome to students, made them dull, and should be banned completely in the lower grades. This sentiment was shared by educators on the other side of the pond in London, England where a report issued in 1938, nicknamed “the children’s charter of emancipation”, put suggested strict limits on the homework assigned to the younger grades.
A similar policy put into place on American shores in 1937 is interesting in how relevant it is to today’s teaching. While seeking to restrict schools from overburdening students with homework, the NYC school superintendent offered a clear explanation to the value of homework and what they hoped to achieve with the new policy. In what many schools in the area have already instituted, the new policy was intended to have homework and instruction cut across subject lines and integrate learning into the child’s experience. For today’s child that might mean learning math through the study of baseball statistics, or studying world history through events that occurred locally. An exciting example of this technique is at work with Wyckoff’s ETV where middle school students present news stories and conduct interviews which they broadcast using the public access channel provided to the borough. The program teaches writing, researching, analytical and technical skills, and incorporates a greater understanding of social issues affecting their school or the world.
Starting in the late 1950’s, new theories in education coincided with the rise of the Cold War and educators began to take a new look at how homework assignments were being utilized. Fears of Soviet schools producing students with a more advanced education, and new research indicating that a new approach to homework might add greater value, provided a basis for schools to begin introducing more vigorous homework policies. By the 1960’s homework was no longer “out of fashion”, and the 1980’s saw the Federal government addressing a growing sense of mediocrity in American schools and a resurgence in the belief that homework was an essential component in improving education.
Many parents continue to have concerns that children are overburdened by homework assignments that cut into limited family time or create anxiety for the child. In Toronto, home to the mighty Canadian dollar, teachers can no longer assign homework over school holidays like spring or winter breaks. Guidelines were also given to limit high school homework to no more than two hours a night. But the climate south of the Canadian border is a bit chillier as schools face mounting pressure to expand curriculums and increase test scores. The increasing need to meet regional or national standards often forces a situation where homework is used to fulfill meeting curriculum requirements rather than its intended use of supplementing a child’s education.
Ideally, homework is an opportunity for a student to expand their reasoning and management skills. This goal is often the reason that parents struggle with the conflict of how to help children with homework without doing it for them. Homework is an important part of the learning process, and the attitude of parents plays an important role. Students are placed in a position to learn responsibility, time management, and logical thinking, and parents should assist them in these efforts. They should, if they can, help in providing an explanation that assists the student in mastering the subject matter; but, they should be wary of depriving students of that golden opportunity when they independently achieve insight and understanding on a subject they are studying.
Readers do not need to be students or parents to get into the spirit of the new school year. The soon to be cooling days offer an invigoration that invites new routines. It’s great weather to get in a new exercise regime, start a new diet, begin a new hobby, or quit a nasty habit. Any day can be the start of new beginnings.